Accidental Rendezvous

‘I’m sure you’re not,’ he said mildly.

She sneaked a sideways glance at him, but his face was bland and innocent of any expression. Huh! He always had been a hell of a poker player. She wondered if he’d known she was here. He hadn’t seemed surprised to see her—or maybe she just didn’t have the effect on him that he had on her. Even so, after all this time and after what they’d been to each other, she would have expected some reaction.

She took him round the department, introducing him to people, showing him the layout, while her mind whirled.

Coincidence, or not? Most people tended to stick to one particular part of the country for their specialist training, because it made for a less disrupted social life. It wasn’t always possible, of course, and sometimes people were forced to move away for a rotation.

The last time she’d known his whereabouts, he’d been in Manchester, well away from Suffolk, so maybe disruption wasn’t something that worried him, or maybe he’d moved on long ago.

Whatever, even if he’d been training within their region for some time, that covered umpteen hospitals scattered all across East Anglia. However, only so many had an A and E department of any size or note, so it was almost inevitable they’d end up together at some point. He would hardly have to engineer it. It could quite easily have been coincidence.

What she didn’t know, of course, and couldn’t find out—short of asking him, which was totally out of the question—was whether he had deliberately chosen a rotation here at the Audley Memorial, or if it was an accident of fate. Absolutely the last thing she intended to do was sound even slightly interested in his personal life or his reason for doing anything—but she would like to know …

Anyway, in her heart she knew the answer. After their acrimonious and bitter parting, and most especially after he’d failed to answer her plea when she’d needed him—really, really needed him—there was no way that he’d have come looking for her.

Which left coincidence.

All she had to decide now was whether she could survive it.

‘Sally, RTA coming in, several casualties, more to follow,’ her young staff nurse, Meg, said as she hurried up to them. ‘I’ve warned the front desk and they’re clearing Resus.’

Thanks. You might dig Ryan out of his office—he’s trying to do paperwork. He’ll probably welcome you with open arms. And put those new girls with someone doing something routine, could you? I don’t want to frighten them both off on their first morning.’ Nick, on the other hand, was a different proposition altogether. She turned to him and gave him a grim smile. ‘OK, then. Let’s see how the boy wonder shaped up, shall we?’

His answering smile was equally grim. ‘Why do I get the feeling I’m on trial here?’ he murmured, and, dropping a casual hand on her shoulder, he turned her round and headed back towards Resus.

She could hear sirens in the distance, and she hurried to prepare everything in readiness for the influx. Patients were shuffled, reassured and soothed, equipment was checked, Ambulance Control quizzed again as to the exact number and severity of their casualties.

Through it all she could feel the imprint of his palm—could still feel it, hours later, when all the blood and mayhem had subsided and they were back to the usual level of pandemonium that passed for normality in the department.

Well, Nick thought, as introductions to a job went, this one couldn’t have been much tougher. They’d been working side by side, and if he hadn’t known better he would have thought Sally had been keeping an eye on him.

Checking him out, no less, making sure he was up to speed.

Damn cheek! His mouth tipped into the faintest grin. It had its upside, though. He’d spent the morning hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder with her, locked together in the battle to save their patients.

He hadn’t had time to think about what he’d been doing and whether she’d approve of it. He’d just gone into autopilot, working flat out to save first one, then another of the casualties. He’d had to rely on her, and she’d been there, keeping pace with him every step of the way.

She’d been amazing to work with—fast, efficient, precise—a real treasure. She would have been a brilliant doctor, and she was plenty clever enough, but as she’d told him all those years ago, it wasn’t what she wanted to do.

She wanted to nurse, and she was still doing it, although she was far enough up the ladder now to be in a nurse manager’s post, instead of remaining on the shop floor so to speak, in amongst it.

It was where she belonged, of course, working in a highly skilled and specialised post where her undoubted talents were exploited to the full.

And they have been today, heaven knows, Nick thought. He pictured again the frightened young mother they’d had to stabilise, and Sally’s gentle reassurance as he’d explored the full extent of her injuries. She’d kept the woman calm, focused her mind on the positive and all the time she’d been working beside him, assisting him and keeping him updated with the woman’s status.

And now it was lunchtime, his stomach told him, and if there was a God at all he’d get a few minutes off and time to talk Sally into a cup of coffee and a sandwich. After all, as Ryan had said, they had a lot of catching up to do.

There was no God, of course, or if there was He was having lunch Himself. There was nothing drastic, just a steady stream of casualties ranging from the life-threatened to the frankly malingering, and it was ages before he saw her again.

She accosted him as he went from the work station back towards a cubicle with an X-ray result.

‘Have you had a break recently?’ she said almost accusingly.

He shook his head, wondering if that was an unpardonable sin in her strictly run department or if she was about to proposition him. ‘No, I haven’t had time.’

‘Nor have I,’ she confessed. ‘Grab a moment and come into the staffroom when you’ve dealt with that—is it straightforward?’

A proposition? Maybe there was a God after all. He nodded again. ‘Yes—a query fracture that isn’t. It just needs Tubigrip and advice.’

‘Right. I’ll make you a coffee and guard the biscuits if there are any. I don’t want you keeling over. Be quick.’

He changed his mind. It sounded like the unpardonable sin option, to his disappointment. Ah, well.

He was quick—as quick as he could be without neglecting the patient’s interests—and then, reminding himself that he wasn’t the only doctor on duty and he needed a break if he was to be of any real use for the rest of his shift, he walked determinedly past a crying child in the next cubicle, past a nurse carrying a set of notes who tried to hail him, and into the staffroom.

Sally was in there with her back to him, bending over to retrieve something from a cupboard, and he was treated to the curve of her bottom and a peep of slender legs when her skirt rode up as she turned towards him.

The coffee’s run out,’ she said in disgust. ‘Will tea do?’

‘Tea’s fine,’ he assured her, wondering if he was going to make a public disgrace of himself and dragging his eyes from the long sweep of her thigh. She straightened, to his simultaneous relief and disappointment, and started clattering mugs about.

‘So, how are things going?’ she asked over her shoulder.

He went closer, just to be near her, to stand within range of the scent of her skin and feel the warmth from her body.

Not that he was cold—far from it. ‘Things are going fine,’ he murmured, and she jumped and whirled round.

‘Do you have to creep up on me?’ she said crossly, and to his delight she looked flustered—flustered and every bit as beautiful as she ever had. He smiled.

‘Sorry—just coming to get my mug from you,’ he said innocently.

She made a noise under her breath that could have been anything but was probably disgust, and stuck a mug in his hand. ‘White, no sugar, not too much milk—that right still?’

She remembers, he thought, and felt a stab of regret. ‘Yes, that’s right still,’ he said softly. Grabbing a handful of biscuits from the tin she offered him, he retreated to the other side of the room, dropped into a comfy chair and crossed one ankle over the other knee to give his feelings a little privacy.

He’d been too busy earlier to react, but now, with this little homely act, she’d brought back a whole host of memories he really didn’t have the time to deal with.

‘So how’ve you been?’ he asked in what he hoped was a level voice, and she shrugged and smiled brightly. Too brightly.

‘Oh, fine. Busy. You?’

He shrugged. ‘So-so. Busy, like you. Too busy, really.’

‘Is that why you’re here, in the country, looking for a change of pace?’ she asked, a touch of disapproval in her voice. ‘If so, I hate to disappoint you but we run flat out all day and all night. Even country bumpkins have accidents.’

He gave a soft, wry laugh. ‘Is that what you think? That I’m looking for a quiet life? I haven’t altered that much.’

Her eyes scanned him almost guiltily, and she looked away. ‘No, I don’t suppose you have,’ she said, and her voice sounded gruff and a little taut.